Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 57% of U.S. towns. What drives it
Most of Baileys Harbor was built recently: 8% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1991. 9 places in town are on the National Register, among them a historic district with 4 buildings. Below: 8 old photos and papers and maps from 1960 on.
The Baileys Harbor post office opened in 1860, the earliest record of the town by name.
More historic than 57% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Baileys Harbor is more historic than 57% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
Wisconsin towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Wisconsin town has 3.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Baileys Harbor’s 71.0 sits above most of its state (91% of Wisconsin towns have fewer) while its 10 historic buildings outnumber those of 76% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving. Boundary changes and added documentation are counted with their listing.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Baileys Harbor.
The town was named for a Great Lakes ship captain named Bailey who was caught in an unexpected severe storm in 1848 and found shelter in the harbor. The area was formerly known as Gibraltar. A Native American name for the harbor is "Ah-quah-o-me-ning", meaning "Fish go to shore".
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
BuiltCana Island Lighthouse is built
In the archiveBaileys Harbor Lighthouse postcard
In the archiveArceuthobium pusillumBuiltBaileys Harbor Town Hall-McArdle Library is built
In the archiveGymnocarpium robertianum North Bay Wisconsin
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
In the archiveSambucus racemosa red elderberry
In the archiveCarex castanea Mud Lake Wisconsin5 decades in the archive, from the 1900s to the 1990s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Baileys Harbor. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Baileys Harbor.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Baileys Harbor’s page.
Retake this view · +15Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Baileys Harbor’s post office has been open since 1860.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Baileys Harbor post office opened in 1860, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Baileys Harbor is more historic than 57% of U.S. towns. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
9 listings: 5 buildings, among them the Cana Island Lighthouse (listed 1976, the first), 1 historic district, the Baileys Harbor Range Light, with 4 contributing buildings, and 3 sites. 10 historic buildings in all.
8% of Baileys Harbor’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±2.5 points), against a typical 12% for a Wisconsin town; the median home was built in 1991.
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (10), Wikidata (2), the National Register of Historic Places (9), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
c. 1949
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1994
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2002